Complementary and substitution cooperation in joint projects: Sabotage by the weak in mixed contests

In collaborative multitasking environments, individual performance contests often undermine team coordination. Our analysis reveals distinct behavioral patterns across different technological frameworks. Under flexible complementary technology, where players’ coordination does not require irrevocable time commitment, the high-ability agent unilaterally determines the level of cooperation, effectively holding the low-ability player hostage. Under substitution technology, however, the high-ability agent demonstrates greater cooperativity to prevent synergy loss — a phenomenon we term the “tyranny of the weak.” Most notably, under inflexible complementary technology, the low-ability agent can engage in sabotage through a bait-and-switch strategy, luring the partner into costly commitments. This role reversal, where cooperation is constrained by the weak player, constitutes a significant and surprising finding. Our work highlights how communication costs can limit strategic cooperation in non-obvious ways, yielding novel theoretical and practical implications for team design.